


Till Human Voices Wake Us And We Drown

by AxlotlAtHeart



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Iron Islands (Westeros), Sort Of Fluff, Swimming, Theon Greyjoy Lives, sansa and theon are ~partners~ but not technically married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23180140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxlotlAtHeart/pseuds/AxlotlAtHeart
Summary: Theon and Sansa both find comfort in the sea. Post Canon, Theon lives AU. Filling the "sea" prompt for Theonsa challenge 2020.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy & Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47
Collections: Theonsa Challenge 2020





	Till Human Voices Wake Us And We Drown

**Author's Note:**

> Yayyy another. I like this idea but I really just wanted to throw it out as it is for the sake of the challenge, but I might go back and add to it later on because I'd like to expand it a little. Maybe. We'll see.

Theon slowly let his thoughts drift back to the present; to the soft touch of the water around him, neither warm nor cold, to the cool wind against his bare skin. The scars still ached some days. But for now they were calm.

Ahead the sea lay just as still, not wild and fierce as it had been in the worst depths of winter. Far west it stretched, as far west as anything could go. Somewhere near the horizon, the sun hovered behind a cloud.

It was easy to think here, easier than when on the shore or behind the walls of Pyke. His mind did not race as much. It was as if the sea itself crept in and calmed his thoughts, matching them to the rhythm of the waves. So here he stood. Thinking.

He turned back to the shoreline and startled when he saw a tall, grey figure with brilliant red hair waiting for him. A flush crept up into his face…he had not expected or wanted her to come.

Struggling a little against the outgoing tide, he made his way back to the shore. He could feel Sansa’s eyes on him the whole time, but forced himself not to meet them.

“What were you doing out there?” She sounded half concerned, half amused.

He shrugged, reaching for his shirt where he’d left it folded on the sand. She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “You’re soaked. What were you thinking? What if the current had pulled you out?”

At that he had to smile. “There isn’t a current strong enough to pull me out. Not here, anyway.”

Still, she looked worried. “Fine. But what …what _were_ you doing?”

He saw her eyes flicker to his chest, to the scars lacing over it, and had a sudden desire to hide from her gaze. But he tried to breathe deeply…it was only Sansa.

“I like to feel the sea,” he said, with as little irony as he could. “Sometimes…I just want to feel a part of it. It’s my home.”

Her face softened, though she still looked confused. “So you wade out into the water in nothing but your trousers and just stand there?”

Perhaps it was as mad as she made it sound. “I…I don’t know. I feel _closer,_ somehow…I don’t know.”

There was something tender in her face, something that made him even more embarrassed than when he had thought she was judging him. “Put your shirt back on, at least. You’ll catch cold.”

He did as she said, pulling his boots on as well. But even then, Sansa made no indication of wanting to leave. Instead she turned abruptly and undid the ties of her cloak, spreading it over a flat stretch of rock. She looked over at him expectantly. “Come and sit with me. Just for a moment.”

Theon frowned, but she only looked innocently at him and gestured to the cloak beside her. Slipping a little on the kelp-strewn rocks, he made his way over.

She put an arm around his shoulders when he sat down beside her, soon shifting to rubbing his shoulder. “You’re freezing. It worried me, you know, to see you out there on your own. I thought … my mind went places I didn’t want it to.”

Theon looked steadily at her. “I was all right, Sansa. I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I wouldn’t have _let_ myself get hurt, I mean. I promise.”

She sighed. “I know. But it worries me, seeing you do things like that. I can’t lose you now, Theon. Not again.”

A deep shame welled up inside him. He had, of course, been lost to her for a long time. If he’d only been braver, if he’d been stronger…but she’d brought him back, in the end. He could never repay her completely for that.

Sansa’s brow was still furrowed, so he kissed her very gently on the forehead. The first time he’d done that, he had been petrified she would hate him for it. Or worse, fear him. But she’d only leaned into his touch, and put her arms around him. Like they were lovers.

 _Lovers._ It still did not seem real. So many times he would give her a word, or a look, or a soft touch, that he instantly would regret for fear of it being inappropriate – only to remember a moment later that it wasn’t. They were lovers. Not married, but near enough. And everyone knew. There was nothing to hide.

Sansa nestled her head into his shoulder. He brushed a few flyaway strands of hair from her face. His legs were beginning to get cold; he’d thought he would be able to sneak up the cliffs and back to Pyke to warm up without being noticed, but now it seemed he would be trapped here.

“I didn’t mean to laugh at you, earlier,” she said quietly. “I know what the sea means to you. It was just…a bit of an odd sight.”

“I know. I just like to feel the water around me, sometimes. It’s calming, in a way. Makes it easier to forget things I rather wouldn’t think about.”

“It helps?”

“It does.”

“Would it help me?”

He thought about it. He had been born here, among rocks and salt, but Sansa had grown in a land of moors and rivers and pine forests. Perhaps it would not comfort her the way it did him.

Sansa shifted her head to look up at him. “I’ve never been in the sea. I don’t know how to swim at all.”

“Not at all?”

She smiled. “I suppose it’s best you know that, now that I visit you here so often. The northmen haven’t made much comment about it yet, but I don’t think they’d take it well if I fell off a cliff and drowned.”

“Would you…like to learn? I could teach you.” He thought she might be more comfortable with another teaching her, that him doing it would be too…intimate. Though perhaps she _preferred_ that.

She looked steadily into his eyes, the intensity of her unflinching gaze startling him as it nearly always did. “I’d like that.”

Well, good. More time spent with her was never a bad thing. So why did the idea of it make him feel so nervous?

“Maybe one day you’ll join me,” said Theon. “In one of my – walks.”

Sansa did not return his gaze. This time her eyes lingered on the water, on its soft lapping against the shore. The two things were exactly the same shade at times.

“Why don’t I join you now?” she said softly. It was only when she did turn back to him that he understood what she meant.

“Are you sure? It’s getting dark.”

“You don’t have to teach me everything you’ve ever learned tonight. I just want to stand with you.”

Theon was about to protest, but she had already stood up, beginning to unlace the ties on her dress. It crumbled to the ground, leaving only the plain shift she wore underneath.

“Sansa, I really don’t think – “

But she was already pulling off her boots as he had done. “Why not? Unless you’re too cold?”

“Well...it is warmer once you’re in the water than it is out here.”

“Then what’s the problem?” She stood in front of him only in her shift, feet bare, shivering slightly. It made him far more uncomfortable than it should – still he felt it was horribly improper for him to look at her when she was like _that_ , and worse, what if somebody else saw?

If they saw…then all they would see would be the two of them standing together in the ocean. Nothing more.

Theon took a deep breath. “All right. If you’d like that.”

He hesitated, then pulled his own shirt off again. And again he could feel her eyes on the scars, but thankfully she made no comment. He climbed over the rocks back to the sand, and held out a hand to her. There was a moment when she took it, where he remembered vividly how it felt to grip her hand on the battlements of Winterfell, how the air had disappeared beneath them…

She stumbled a little on the slippery rocks and he instinctively put a hand to her back to steady her. When she did not protest, he kept it there.

When they touched the water she let out a surprised gasp. “You lied! It’s freezing!”

He held back a smile. “It’ll get warmer, I promise. Just hold onto me.”

She took his arm, fingers digging into it as they shuffled over the uneven seabed. When the water reached their waists he stopped, taking her other arm so neither would fall. The calm waves lapped around them, higher than they had been when Theon had been out this far alone. The tide was creeping in.

“Do you feel it?” He asked her. “Do you feel…like you’re part of it?”

Her eyes travelled over the water’s shining surface, out to where it met the horizon far away. “I do.”

Theon followed her gaze. The sun had broken through its blanket of clouds, resting in a space between them and the water. Its deep red glow dotted across the sea all the way up to where they stood.

“It’s beautiful here,” Sansa murmured. “In its own way. When I first came to visit you, I was prepared for it to be all cold and harsh.”

“It can be that as well.”

“Yes. But there are still things like this.”

Looking at her now, her eyes shut to the sun, face tilted just so that the warm rays made her skin glow, she was no doubt the most beautiful person he had ever laid eyes on. If only he could tell her that without pushing her away.

Cautiously, tentatively, he crept his hand up to her shoulder and pulled her towards him, just slightly. It was not so cold when they stood with their bodies pressed together. She did not pull away, instead leaning her head against his shoulder. After a moment’s hesitation he rested his own head on top of hers.

 _Lovers._ And everybody knew it. They could be what they wanted to be.

“You said the sea was your home,” Sansa said quietly. “Could it be my home too? Now that I’m here?”

“If you want it to be, then it is.”

“Good.”

They did not say anything after that. For the time until the sun dipped below the horizon and it got too cold to stay out much longer, they simply stood in the midst of the green ocean, letting the waves rock them and carry their troubles away with the rising tide.


End file.
